Reckless Woman

by Barrie Miller Kirby

When she got home at the end of the day, after she stepped out of her car at the front of her driveway to get mail from the box, she didn’t put back on her seatbelt. She ate yogurt a day or even two past its expiration date. When she washed her hair, she ignored the instructions on the shampoo bottle to “repeat.” If she was particularly tired at night, she would go to bed without flossing her teeth. Sometimes when she had sex, she used only one form of birth control. She was not merely reckless; she was wild.